Gore trumps his rival with Kennedy ace

Vice-president Al Gore's uphill struggle to prevent his Democratic rival Bill Bradley from winning the crucial New Hampshire primary next month received a huge boost yesterday when Senator Edward Kennedy gave his personal endorsement to Mr Gore as the Democratic party's White House choice.

The much-coveted Kennedy endorsement was carefully timed to take place only hours before the latest Gore-Bradley televised debate in New Hampshire last night, and came as the latest poll showed the two contenders in a statistical dead-heat in New Hampshire, where the first presidential primary takes place in less than four weeks' time, on February 1.

Mr Kennedy may be a political lion in winter these days, but his icon-like status within the party, his huge local influence in New England, his deep knowledge of the two rivals from their senate years, and his standing as the Democrats' most unrepentant liberal, give his backing for Mr Gore enormous weight.

With Mr Gore at his side, Mr Kennedy told reporters in his home town of Boston that the vice-president spoke for "our Democratic priorities" such as health care, education, good jobs and a clean environment.

Mr Gore had "the ability, the vision and the experience to lead this nation wisely and well in the coming years, and I'll be proud to stand with [him] in the great battles that lie ahead", Mr Kennedy said.

The latest poll, by the American Research Group (ARG), shows Mr Bradley commanding 42% of support among the state's Democratic voters, with Mr Gore on 39%.

Allowing for the poll's margin of statistical error, it puts the two men in a dead heat, and suggests that Mr Gore is narrowing the gap on Mr Bradley, who led by 12 points in a similar survey a month ago.

The closeness of the Democratic contest in New Hampshire lent fresh significance to last night's debate, for which both camps had promised a more combative approach, reflecting the more intense language of their campaigning since the new year.

Mr Bradley, who in every sense is the loftier candidate of the two and who has performed well in earlier match-ups with his rival, yesterday accused Mr Gore of campaigning in "desperation" and warned Democrats that the vice-president would be a weaker presidential nominee because of his questionable 1996 fund-raising tactics.

"The Republicans think it's a problem and I think they will use it in the fall campaign [if Mr Gore is the nominee]," Mr Bradley said.

Since campaigning resumed following the Christmas-new year break, both Mr Gore and Mr Bradley have sharpened their language in what had previously been a remarkably civil contest.

But with Mr Gore now using a much more aggressive campaigning style, repeatedly trying to raise doubts about Mr Bradley's policy pledges, both men now appear readier to resort to tried and tested political black arts.

With few major issues or ideas to divide them, Mr Gore has finally focused his assault on the charge that Mr Bradley's ambitious universal health care plan is unrealistic and too costly.

While Mr Bradley hit back this week with a counter-claim that the vice-president's supposedly more "responsible" health plan, which focuses on medicare plans for the poor and the elderly, would overspend federal balanced budget forecasts by $350bn over 10 years.

This week, choosing another new tack, Mr Gore said that Mr Bradley had given education reform a "short shrift" by comparison with his own plans for pre-school entitlements and said the Bradley plans were badly costed. A Bradley administration would "blunder into another recession", Mr Gore charged.

Mr Bradley said yesterday that he was "not going to stand by when people misrepresent my views", adding that Mr Gore's charges sounded "a bit to me like desperation".

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